What gets measured gets managed

Regardless of labels, the relationship between school spending and BPT revenue is the same as the relationship between school spending and, for example, corporate income tax revenue.2 Provincial BPTs are net taxes on businesses in the same way that corporate income taxes are net taxes on businesses. [...] The consensus among municipal finance experts is that the municipal BPT is substantially a net tax because many have found that the tax cost exceeds the value of municipal services benefitting businesses.3 1 We only briefly discuss each province’s business property tax regime here, with details in the Appendix. [...] An equalization grant from the provincial government available since 2006 has broken the link between property tax revenue and funding in school boards that had levied the maximum rate.4 The rates apply equally to the assessed values of all property types, but effective rates differ across school boards. [...] The province has the highest provincial BPT rate in the country, and it will still be the highest even after its legislated reductions through to 2016, which have the effect of lowering a current investment’s effective BPT rate. [...] Essential Policy Intelligence 6 e-Brief The METR Effect of Business Property Taxes “Property taxes on commercial and industrial property increase the marginal effective tax rate on capital, discouraging investment in structures, and reducing the competiveness of the business sector.” (Dahlby 2012, 23).